THE GREAT SOCIAL SECURITY SCAM: We keep hearing all this
wailing about how the Social Security system will be bankrupt
in a few short decades. Well, before you fall for that crap, check
out this month's issue of Mother Jones, that fine, hell-raising
journal of investigative reporting.

Seems all it would take to ensure the system will carry the baby-boomer
population bulge through to dusty death is a relatively small
hike in withholding taxes right now--from 6.2 percent to 7.3 percent.

But we doubt we'll be hearing much about that simple--and relatively
painless--option, even though Bill Clinton is still in
the White House. The reason is simple: Wall Street investment
bankers want to get their hands on hundreds of billions of dollars
of our money. Naturally, they'd get their cut for managing the
bucks whether our individual retirement accounts went up or down,
down, down.

Frankly, we don't trust the stock market to stay up much past
the first big baby-boomer die-off, which we calculate to be about
10 years from now--sorry, funseekers. Of course, by then savvy
Gen-Xers should be heavily invested in the tie-dyed casket-liner
industry.

One of the leaders of the drive to further enrich the Wall
Street billionaires is our own U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe. According
to Mother Jones, Kolbe heads the Public Pension Reform
Caucus, a bipartisan coalition of House members who support Social
Security privatization. Kolbe's caucus was actually created by
another organization, the private Investment Company Institute
(ICI), which is merely a trade association that lobbies for the
mutual fund industry.

What's the deal, Jimbo: Screwing the older generation through
NAFTA wasn't enough? Now you wanna screw their kids, too?

MEMO TO THE TV NEWS AIRHEADS: Listen, you sorry sacks of
flatulence, we really don't give a flying Philadelphia fandango
about those pointless disaster drills. They're not news. Hell,
they're not even interesting video.

Seems that lately you TV "news" types have become enamored
of covering these non-news events. You must think your viewers
are dumber than toast to waste their time airing that stuff. Or
maybe you're just practicing, so you'll be ready for a real news
event, should one occur.

When it does, we'll undoubtedly see your street reporters standing
there "live," about five hours after the cataclysmic
event occurs, apologizing breathlessly that "Just hours ago..."

Guess it's too much to expect your street reporters, who're on
average about 12 years old and just in from Los Angeles for the
next couple of weeks at that, to go find out what's really happening
in this town. In short, your journalism sucks.

During the election just past, the only in-studio guy who seemed
to know what was happening was Bud Foster, who did a credible
job explaining the issues and providing additional information
about the candidates. Golly, maybe he actually reads the newspapers.

The rest of you anchor types looked like uninformed simpletons,
or worse. We found it amusing when Joe 'n' Patty couldn't
come up with an accurate recent history of the Pima County Board
of Supervisors between them. Meanwhile, Guy 'n' Laurie
provided viewers with nothing more than what we could read on
the TV screen. Were you two afraid of appearing ill-informed?
Well, guess what? You did anyway.

SELLING THE FARM? Our sources are telling us to keep an
eye on the Arizona Board of Regents' agenda. It's rumored there's
a move afoot to sell the UA farm on North Campbell Avenue. Regent
dudes like John Munger and Hank Amos III would undoubtedly
love to see the farm converted to apartments. Wouldn't surprise
us if they put up high-rises--any group that could approve the
use of the old IBM plant way to hell and gone on the southeast
side as the U's new campus is capable of anything. Perhaps they'll
vote to plop a toxic sludge dump right there by the river.

GARY TRIANO IS STILL DEAD: Expect to see that headline
in the Tucson Citizen any day now as the fading afternoon
rag continues to churn the non-news involving the November 1 car-bombing
of local developer Gary Triano. It's obvious Citizen
cop shop denizen David Teibel is rewriting the same story
over and over to keep the item in front of the public in the hopes
it'll jog somebody into calling law enforcement or the press with
a new piece of information. That part would probably be OK, but
who are the bozos at the Citizen who gave us these headlines:
"BLAST FRAGMENTS STUDIED" and "WITNESSES TO TRIANO
BLAST SOUGHT."

Give us a break--those suckers ought to be in the non-news hall
of fame. They come somewhere between: "PAINT DRIES ON NEW
BUILDING" and "LOST DOG FOUND IN OWNER'S BACK

YARD." They bring new meaning to "slow day."

AND SPEAKING OF CAR BOMBING: After two consecutive Skinny
articles and a little air support concerning the obviously BS
news coverage stating the car bomb used in the Triano hit was
made from "black powder," The Arizona Daily Star
finally backed off the BS. On November 16, in a story by Ric
Volante, we were told the manufacturer of the explosive used
in the blast had been identified. The article further stated:
"Some law enforcement officials and news organizations, including
The Arizona Daily Star, have referred to the explosive
by the misleading term 'black powder.' The term commonly refers
to the type used in muzzle-loading guns. But the bomb actually
contained 'smokeless powder,' a blackish-gray explosive packed
in modern ammunition cartridges, ATF and sheriff's officials said
yesterday."

OK, but that still leaves a couple of questions: Why did an ATF
PR flack incorrectly identify the explosive in the first place?
Ignorance or political agenda? Why did it take so long for ATF
to correct their original statements? And have the news media
finally learned their role is something more than regurgitating
government handouts and statements? Now that you've been hustled
once, will you continue to be jived by the same source?

FIFE RECALL R.I.P.: Somebody needs to tell those still
feebly trying to Recall Governor J. Fife Deadbeat III that it
will take more than hanging signs on leftover rebar. There was
a golden opportunity to pick up plenty of signatures by simply
working the polling places on general election day. But Symington
foes missed that opportunity either because those in charge of
the recall are too poorly organized, or else there simply aren't
enough people who want the Whiteguy's ass to carry the petitions.
Either way, plan on not having a recall election.

SUNDAY DRIVE: Last weekend we loaded the kids in the car
and took an old-fashioned Sunday drive. It's good to get out occasionally
and explore our rapidly growing town. And besides, little Biff
and Spanky looked so cute in their Sunday best, we wanted to prolong
the illusion of Norman Rockwell normalcy for an hour or so, before
they jumped back into their ripped jeans and T-shirts to twitch
away the afternoon in front of the Super Nintendo.

We thought we'd explore the relatively new Aviation Highway.
Pristine and all but deserted, it's been beckoning to us for a
year now, in our daily commutes downtown or to the southside on
various errands--at times when we've been much too chained in
daily drudgeries to follow the lure of the open road. Speeding
over the dismal 22nd Street overpass, often we've glanced down
at Aviation Highway and glimpsed its virgin concrete stretching
southeastward in a seemingly endless, free-wheeling, all-American
sort of glory.

Of course we were destined for disappointment.

Once you're on it, the Aviation Highway makes no sense at all.
What was once a crummy, two-lane blacktop slithering alongside
the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks is now a four-lane parkway
boldly paralleling those same tracks. But there are stoplights
every mile or so, and--oh, shattered dreams of high adventure!--it
goes essentially nowhere.

On the west end, Aviation Highway more or less dead ends at the
Broadway Boulevard underpass leading to downtown. So naturally
we opted to head southeast, toward the horizon. Unfortunately,
that route, too, ends abruptly, around South Alvernon/Palo Verde,
where Aviation Highway merges with Golf Links Road. Whee!

Not exactly the excursion of our vagabond dreams. But what the
hell, the kids were belted in and fighting quietly between themselves,
and we had a full tank of gas, so we continued cruising east.
Mindlessly so. Past Davis-Monthan, past the rows of shoddy apartments
and all the other detritus of urban-edge dwellers' desert development.
And onward toward the far eastside, our trusty family sedan thrumming
along, as we wondered vaguely why in the hell our government officials
had spent millions and millions of dollars to spiff up that pitifully
short stretch of Aviation.

Whose odd little scheme was it? And why didn't they spend all
that money instead making 22nd Street into a parkway, which would
have benefited far more people? And on and on, into the lush desert,
now scarred and pitted only here and there by someone's five-acre,
slump-block dream ranchette and junked-car repository. And then,
just for the hell of it, we chanced to turn right, and soon, as
if in a dream, there it was--legendary land speculator Don
Diamond's wonderful Rocking K Ranch!

Yes, the potential mega development we've heard so much about--or
so little, really, if you read the daily papers. It all became
clear to us then: Golf Links-to Aviation-to downtown-to, eventually,
Interstate 10, the world, the universe, the mind of God...

It's all interconnected in a grand plan, as we're sure voters
will agree when the Tucson City Council gets around to annexing
the Rocking K, and then we city dwellers are asked to approve
millions in bond money to bring Golf Links up to Aviation Highway
standards and build bridges and city recreation centers for all
the rich people privileged enough to live way out there amid the
scenic splendor of the Rincons.

Oh, we'll happily pay and pay and pay. After all, hasn't that
always been the peasantry's obligation?

We took the interstate back to Tucson. The sign just west of
the Vail turnoff said it was 23 miles to town, and we drove really
fast.